I just got back from Sara’s birthday party and my belly is full of Chinese food, birthday cake and ice cream.
Oh. My. God. Mitchell’s ice cream.
I had so many scoops of this incredible ice cream that my belly is dramatically distended.
Here’s the definition of distended: To swell out or expand from or as if from internal pressure.
Yep. That about sums it up.
And I don’t care. You wouldn’t care either if you had tasted this ice cream. Trust me.
It was that good.
I’m so glad I live in Marin and Mitchell’s Ice Cream Shop is far across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Having Mitchell’s close by would not be a good thing.
But moving on…
Sara recently got back from Tanzania where she traveled for seven weeks. Three of the weeks she spent volunteering in a hospital.
Sara has a very kind heart and is generous of spirit. She also loves adventure.
She had a slideshow of her travel pictures and I was mesmerized by the way she captured the primary colors, wild animals and humanity of Tanzania.
She had at least 200 pictures on a loop. I like vacation photos when people I know are in them, not scenery or people that I didn’t personally see or know. Sara wasn’t in any of these photos and yet I watched the loop of 200 pictures go around about at least 5 times.
Her pictures were really fantastic and unusual. I couldn’t pull myself away from them.
When it came time to sing happy birthday Sara said that she wanted to do a Tanzanian ritual instead.
According to Sara when Tanzanians have a birthday the one who is having the birthday sings a song to the guests while feeding guests dessert.
Because Sara didn’t know the song she decided to feed us each a bite of cake and tell us what she liked about each of us instead.
So she went around the room, feeding each of us cake and praise.
Some people got teary.
It was quite a lovely experience.
After wiping my eyes I got into conversation with a woman who is -get this- a professional skipper.
I know.
Funny, isn’t it?
Her name is Kim Corbin and she started a website called iskip.com.
She started her website in 1999 because she saw skipping as a way to live a happier, healthier life.
I love it.
A couple years after she created her website she began to get a lot of publicity because all of a sudden everyone and their brother was interested in skipping.
I don’t remember going through this phase.
Kim quit her job to take skipping to a whole new level–she wanted to make a business out of skipping.
“I skipped my way into financial ruin,” she told me tonight.
Oh no.
The skipping sounds like fun.
The financial ruin, not so much.
“Now I have a job and I’m not expecting the skipping to be a business; however, it would be nice if I could make some money somehow from it. I’m thinking about writing a manual for non-profits which outlines how to have a skip-a-thon to raise money for their organizations. I was contacted by someone in Bakersfield recently who is interested in my helping them plan a skip-a-thon.”
A skip-a-thon. Now that is something I would like to see.
“But you know, skipping takes a lot of energy. And not everyone skips at the same pace and most people can’t skip for 5 miles straight. Most have to stop to take a break after skipping for a few minutes. Everyone in a skip-a-thon would have to go at their own pace.”
Kim is definitely the skipping expert. I’m sure if anyone can figure out how to plan a skip-a-thon, she’s the gal for the job.
While perusing Kim’s website I discovered a link to The National Institute for Play.
Play (whether through skipping, games or some other form) is definitely a necessity for this girl. If I don’t do enough of it I get quite cranky.
And you don’t want to see me cranky.
Last night I played a hilarious game of balderdash with the Uptown Saturday night gang (I’m still chuckling about it a day later) and then tonight after talking and laughing with Kim about skipping I’m noticing my play tank is definitely full.
As is my belly after all that ice cream.
Yum.
About Me: 
